January 26, 2012
David Cameron has delivered a firm rebuke to Germany at the World Economic Forum, calling on Berlin to contribute significantly more resources and guarantees to help solve the eurozone crisis.
The British prime minister stressed on Thursday that although progress had been made, particularly with the European Central Bank’s funding of the European banking system, policymakers were still far from finding a solution to the underlying problems of the crisis. He criticised eurozone leaders for being distracted by other issues, such as the introduction of a financial transaction tax – an initiative he described as “quite simply madness”.
His speech in Davos reflected British officials’ long-standing and deep frustration with Germany’s leadership of the single currency area and called for a much stronger firewall to prevent contagion within the eurozone, common European sovereign debt and for powerful countries committing to reduce their trade surpluses as much as the struggling countries seek to minimise their deficits.
The sentiments chimed with many British and US delegates at the WEF who have criticised Germany for seeking to persuade other countries to “become more German” without the corollary that Germany must “become less German” by importing more and allowing its trade surpluses to shrink.
“Yes, tough fiscal discipline is essential. But this is a problem of trade deficits, not just budget deficits,” Mr Cameron said.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment